Ok, got a book request...it has an RC which generally I don't have a problem with...but, I do this one...I don't like the thought that this book is going to be pulled from the PBS system...is that being grouchy...

Here is the RC:

"Most of the books I order will be going into the church library so I appreciate it if they didn't have a smoke or an attic smell. Also, I would like them to be in a decent condition since many people will be reading these books. Thanks for your consideration. PM if you are not sure or have any questions.  Thanks"

The books we get on PBS are ours to do with what we want.  Many of the books I get from PBS get read and go back into the PBS system.  And many of the books I order are keepers that I have no intention of ever putting back into the PBS system.  This person is being honest about their intention for the books, and I think they've stated it pretty politely.  So I wouldn't have any problem sending them a book.

ETA:  The whole "smoke or attic smell" is a subjective requirement, so that might give me pause before sending this person a book.   But I don't think that's what's bothering you, is it?

Just curious, but why would you care where the book ends up? Once it leaves your hands and is received by the requestor, it is no longer YOUR book. Many people request books for their keeper shelves. I, myself, have 3 shelves in my home specifically for my "keepers". I get most of them from PBS. However, I do feel that I post enough books back into the system to counteract/justify the few I do decide to keep. Is it the fact that they are going to a church library or just not reposted into the system that you have the most problem with?

Pam

Not going to accept or decline this evening...still have 5 days to accept...think I'm just tired and grouchy this evening so, we'll see about later.

Pamela it has nothing to do with the fact that it is a church library...

Ok, I just wondered. I hope you get to feeling better. I have had several grouchy days myself. My boys keep asking "what's wrong mom?" 

As far as my "keepers" go, I am collecting the Outlander series by Diana Gabadlon, Suzanne Brockmann's Troubleshooter series, all of Julie Garwood's historicals, Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, Johanna Lindsey's Malory Novel series and Tara Jenzen's Crazy series, plus several stand-alones by Linda Howard, Diana Palmer and Susan Elizabeth Philips. My favorite genre is romantic comedy. I love books that make me LOL!

Pam

Sorry, but IMHO this is just wrong.  In another thread on this site you got quite a discussion going over the exact amount of time between when a label is printed and when the book gets mailed.  You made it plain in that thread that you considered getting a book into the mail as soon as possible was of some importance to you.

Now, here you are in this thread publicly stating that rather than acting on a book request you are going to ignore it for up to five days, simply because you're not sure if you like what the requestor is going to do with the book.

If someone did that to you, how would you feel about it?

It's your book, you can do with it what you want, but I feel it goes against the spirit of what this club is about for you to deliberately delay.  I feel you have an implicit obligation, according to the rules and practices of this club, to either accept or decline the request as soon as possible.

The purpose of this club is not to see how many books we can keep "in the system", or to only trade them between members and never let them get "away".

Daboss: Other issues aside, I don't think that it is wrong to spend a night sleeping on an RC that has you a bit puzzled. I actually got one that puzzled me a bit earlier today and I had to stop and think about it for a few hours.

On a site where some people let things time out just because they can't be bothered to hit a button, I don't think waiting a few hours to make sure that everyone is satisfied with a book to be any kind of problem.

Christy: To answer your question, I don't think it is neccissarily wrong to take a book out of the system. Most of the books I order are keepers unless I end up not liking them as much as I thought I would. However, I am posting books from my own shelves too. I think that if a person never ever posted any books, just ordered them, then that might not be with the spirit of the thing. But on the other hand, they did pay for their credits, instead of getting them from swaps, so they're serving a neccessary function in keeping this site up and running. And the library person might get books donated from elsewhere occasionally that are perfectly PBS postable but not what her Church is looking for and post them, so new books are coming in...

I would probably send it anyways, but I think that it is up to you. People do refuse RCs for no apparent reason, or just on principle, and some might reject her's just because of the subectitivity of smell, so... Take some time, think on it, and do what you think is right.

ETA: Typos. :P

Umm, that's a little harsh Bernhard.  PBS does not demand that you immediately accept or decline a request, they give you 5 days to do so.  Someone is not a better member than someone else just because they accept or decline in the first hour of the request rather than the last hour.  No one is obligated to immediately accept or decline any request.

Christy, yeah, that's a bit grouchy to be bothered by what's going to happen to the book once it leaves your hands.  Whatever the receiver decides to do with it is their choice.

With respect Sarah, when you get a book request the system does say that you have to deal with it before doing anything else.

Regardless...  It's her choice to make, but she did ask for opinions.

Bernhard you are comparing apples to oranges. The comments that Christy made were in reference to people who marked a book mailed and then didn't mail them for a few days. Delayed shipping of a book that you have agreed to ship by a specific date is very different then a delay in accepting a request. The person who has made the request is not expecting the book and left waiting for it. The PBS system gives you 5 days to accept a request. Christy has not entered into any agreement with this requestor,  she is just considering whether or not to accept. These are very different, one breaks the rules and is unfair to the requestor, this one is well within the rules and effects no one.

With respect Margaret, I have to disagree.  My point in bringing up the other thread was that Christy, in that thread, expressed dismay over any delay in getting a book, yet in this thread was planning to make a member wait while she made up her mind about it.

Futhermore, while you do have five days to respond to a book request, that five days is to give you time to be notified of the request and logon.  Once you logon, and go to your account area, it tells you right there, in plain English, that you are expected to act on the request before you go to any other page.  It doesn't say you "should" deal with it then, or that you have X number of days left to make up your mind.  No, the word used there is "must", as in "...must address this request before proceeding."

If the intention of TPTB is to give you five days to make up your mind then that part should be eliminated or changed.

Christy, the majority of the books I get from PBS are taken out of the system, I keep most of them and I give some of them to my friends or family.  However, I shop once or twice a week at a resale shop near me specifically to buy books to post here--this place has lots of books in like new or very good condition, and many of them are wishlisted.  So even though I'm taking a lot of books out of the system, I'm putting a lot of high quality books back in, so I feel like it all evens out. 

To answer your question - yes you are being a grouch.  That said, we all have the right to be grouchy whenever we choose.  You really don't KNOW where other books you send end up.  They may end up on the book shelf at my beauty shop, if I choose to put one there.  It may end up on a keeper shelf.   The ONLY thing different here is she stated what she would be doing with hers.   

It's your book - do what feels right for you.  When she get it - it's her book and she has the same right!

Futhermore, while you do have five days to respond to a book request, that five days is to give you time to be notified of the request and logon.  Once you logon, and go to your account area, it tells you right there, in plain English, that you are expected to act on the request before you go to any other page.  It doesn't say you "should" deal with it then, or that you have X number of days left to make up your mind.  No, the word used there is "must", as in "...must address this request before proceeding."

I disagree. Back in the early days of PBS, you literally HAD to deal with a request, from you or for you, before you could go anywhere else on the site. That is no longer the case, so I have to assume TPTB thought that wasn't a good idea anymore. I believe that word MUST is a holdover from the days when the programming forced you to respond. If they really felt that way, they wouldn't have changed the programming to even make it possible to go elsewhere before you responded.

Not all attics smell the same. I'd decline even if my books aren't stored in an attic. "attic smell" isn't as definitive as say the aroma of garlic or chocolate. Most species of garlic (and chocolate) smell similar.

But. And there's always a but. If you are confident that your book does not smell like anyone's idea of what the average North American attic should smell like, then by all means send it. I'd hate to sound like I'm lambasting this person for being vague. She was straightforward with smoke at least.

Why does it matter that the books won't be back in PBS? Is it some kind of requirement or custom?

I read the post a bit too fast before realizing what really bothered you about the RC. Sorry.

Yea... I guess it's kind of grouchy. I know members who buy credits from PBS for the sole purpose of keeping a book. They paid their dues so Ithey should be given the choice of whether to keep a book or not. Also, my church has a library too...and it's used by many of the area's poor who will never be able to afford a computer and visit a great place like PBS. Nothing wrong with being charitable.

On the other hand, the book is your property, and you don't have to send it if you don't want too.

We are fast approaching 3,000,000 posted books. It's not like we have a book shortage going on.

I think of it this way, books have no feelings, they don't know whose shelf they are on.  You need to let them go to where they are meant to go.  If that be to a church library, a friends shelf or in the basement of a stranger's house never to be read so be it.  It is a nonanimate object.  I don't mean to sound as if I don't care about books, because believe me I do.  I just don't worry about things like that.  If someone is meant to read that particular book it will wind up in their hands at the time they are most likely to get the most from it.

90% percent of the books I receive from PBS leave the country never to be seen again.  Like others have said I feel that I add enough books and WL books back into the system to make up for that.  And if the day ever comes that I stop trading books and just purchase credits through the site, that will be ok, too.

That said, it's your book to do with as you please. I guess I just don't really understand why you seem bothered about books being removed from the system as so many titles are added on a daily basis.

Diane, you said so well what I feel about books.   You just said it better than I've ever been able to.

New Day, New Feelings...will probably send it!!! Thanks for most of the responses here....

Now Bernhard...let me get you a bit straightened out!!!  The other thread that you are referring too you totally did not understand....obviously...I did not express dismay at any delay in getting a book...get real, books can take up to 21 days to get here and sometimes go lost before they even arrive.  The actual point of the other thread was...marking a book mailed before you actually mail it unless it fell within the three exceptions listed.  That thread had NOTHING to do with anything related to a delay in getting a book.

Secondly Bernhard...I have no clue where you think that it says I "must" deal with the book request before I go to any other page...my page says NOTHING of the sort...below is a copy of what my account says when I log on and it says nothing about I must deal with requests....

Hello, Christy. Welcome back to your account!

• Items Needing Your Attention:
• Requests awaiting your attention -

Happy reading! - The PaperBackSwap Librarian

Oh and furthermore, it says..... "You have 4 days and 3 hours left to answer this request."

sorry, no must or nothing....I have days left before I have to respond and that is in the rules...besides with my current work schedule I need those days...

Evidently this has been changed, and like many other things that change on PBS, isn't showing up the same way for all members.  (For example, the "book mailed" emails that some have gotten for months while others just started getting recently)

I had a book request last night, and on my page it said that I had to deal with the request before continuing.

...  I feel you have an implicit obligation, according to the rules and practices of this club, to either accept or decline the request as soon as possible. This looks to me to be an expectation that everyone else agrees with your own personal belief of how you want the site to work.

Futhermore, while you do have five days to respond to a book request, that five days is to give you time to be notified of the request and logon.  Once you logon, and go to your account area, it tells you right there, in plain English, that you are expected to act on the request before you go to any other page.  It doesn't say you "should" deal with it then, or that you have X number of days left to make up your mind.  No, the word used there is "must", as in "...must address this request before proceeding."

I really think this is a way overreaction to the wording used on the site. I have never even thought to interpret that page as I cannot use the rest of the site before I respond to a request. If we must respond to and mail a book as soon as we see the order, I guess I (and probably half the membership here) need to take our books and play elsewhere. I am always on this site during the day at work and I will NEVER respond to a request before I actually pull the book and inspect it; and I really hope that anyone getting an order from me does the same. We come on the site to do other things besides accept orders like check into games, check our PMs, and order books. We are given 5 days to respond to an order and I think it is perfectly reasonable to leave requests until we have time to deal with them, determine if they meet RCs, or get the mail by date to reach our next trip to the post office. I rarely ever let a request go past 1 or 2 days, but sometimes I have other things to deal with and it bugs me that people get into such a tizzy about member actually using the grace periods the site gives us.

Christy - yes it is a bit grouchy, but we are entitled as long as we don't lash out in the response to the RCs. I get that feeling to once in a while too when I see RCs stating they are using PBS to build public-use libraries-those that state they only want high the high quality stuff and it sounds like they are taking larger quantities of books out of the system. I sometimes decline if the WL is long here, the book still may not come back to the system, but it has a better chance if the aren't stating it outright that they are taking it out of the system. I figure its my book and I have the right to send it to someone without conditions if I want to. I also try to remember that I have requested a handful of OOP books for my favorite library and I get keepers from here too. But, I also put twice the number of WL books into the system as I take out and I always hold out hope that these other people are doing the same.

The question still remains, as I asked in my original post on this topic, "How would you feel if someone did it to you?"

How would you feel if someone delayed responding to your WL request simply because they weren't sure they liked what you might do with the book once you got it?  How about if they waited a few days to make up their mind and then declined the request for that reason?

I'd wait for the next, no big deal to me. I'd also hope the person who declined had the tact to keep their opinions to themselves and I would never know they didn't send it to me for that reason. That's the only time I get irked about RC turn-downs, when I get someone ranting at me for having them. I understand it is their book and their time, and I am grateful for them sharing with me when a postable book shows up at my door.